Homesick
by Aracertariel
Summary: Kagome is masochistic, she decides. Masochistic and homesick. It's the only way to explain why she spends so much time hanging around Team 7. Just a quick one-shot with no pairings


This is just a quick one-shot with no pairings. Because I've been reading a lot of Inuyasha-Naruto crossovers lately. So, this one is mine. Setting in the timeline is purposefully vague all around. And of course, I have no legal rights to these characters or settings.

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Kagome is masochistic, she decides. Masochistic and homesick. It's the only way to explain why she spends so much time hanging around Team 7. She craves the hurt that she gets from the little reminders of the family she lost in the feudal era. It helps make up for the fact that there are so few reminders of the family she lost in her own time.

Kagome meets Naruto first. He declares them friends as soon as he realizes that she is new to the village. She suspects that it is more because he sees just how lonely she is. He reminds her of Shippo sometimes – the way he smiles and jokes and chatters.

But he reminds her of Inuyasha more – the way he tries so hard to be strong in the face of the senseless hatred of his village. She has been warned against being friends with the rambunctious boy, she has heard them whisper _demon_ behind his back. It makes Kagome all the more determined to stick by him.

She meets Sasuke next. She is going on a picnic with Naruto when they run into him. The one-sided threats (from Naruto to Sauske) and the near-friendly exchange of insults (dobe, teme) remind her of the meetings between Inuyasha and Sesshomaru. And that's not the only way in which Sasuke resembles the taiyukai. He is nearly monosyllabic. Kagome invites him to join them and he agrees with a scoff and a "Whatever," as if he is doing them a favor. His main contributions to the conversation are a series of grunts that by their tone indicate either a positive or negative response. But when he tries Kagome's triple fudge brownies, his reaction is the same as Sesshomaru's was. His eyes widen a bit and he emits a low, contented hum – a drawn out "Hmm" instead of his usual short "Hn" – before he pulls the pan closer and snatches up another. Sauske is cold and arrogant and prideful, but he's a sucker for chocolate.

Kagome meets Sakura because the pink-haired girl is looking for Sasuke, and then is unwilling to leave her crush while he is in the presence of an unknown possible-rival. She becomes much friendlier when Kagome takes her aside and makes it clear that she isn't at all interested in Sasuke that way. They're just friends. And at first, Sakura blessedly doesn't remind her of anyone. But as she gets to know the other girl, she begins to see the worst parts of her younger self. She sees the part of her that chased hopelessly after Inuyasha while he chased after Kikyo. Kagome is glad that Sasuke at least is not encouraging the girl while chasing after his ex. That would have been too painful to watch happen. She can only offer advice and support, hoping that Sakura will outgrow her crush as Kagome herself was able to. (Eventually. Mostly.) And sometimes she sees Kikyo – jealous and angry and _unable to let_ go. But for the most part Kagome can see Sakura as only herself, and that is a relief. Their relationship grows into something like the easy friendship she had with her school friends.

She meets their teacher last. With the constant presence of that little orange book, one would think that Kakashi would remind Kagome of Miroku. But he is so much more like Sango. He carries around his loss and loneliness like a shield. Kagome has seen him standing at the memorial stone. The stillness and the pervading guilt and grief remind her of the pilgrimages Sango would make to the empty demon-slayer village whenever they passed close enough for her to make the trip – full of wistful what-ifs as she laid flower after flower upon rows of graves. Like Sango, there is something about her friends' teacher that says he grew up too fast and lost more than he could bear along the way – that one more loss might break him. And like Sango he somehow manages to keep going anyway, to care for his students more than is safe to risk with his already too-damaged heart.

Kagome can tell that he doesn't exactly approve of his students befriending the strange, civilian foreigner. But he also sees the way that Sasuke is calmer in her presence. He sees Sakura distracted (if only temporarily) from her pursuit of Sasuke. He sees Naruto less agitated and more focused for having someone who listens to him (and, he suspects, occasionally pranks with him, though there is no proof of this.) Kakashi notices that she is on friendly terms with other ninja (Kiba, Shikamaru, Hinata, surprisingly Anko. Even Ibiki returns her greetings warmly when they pass each other.) He notices that she is on less friendly terms with the civilian population, and it is at least in part due to their treatment of Naruto. (He can't seem to fault her for that.) It's not that she doesn't have civilian acquaintances, but she _doesn't_ have civilian _friends_.

Kakashi asks her why she hangs around with ninja. It's not normal for a civilian girl to be so undisturbed by their bloody lifestyle. Kagome shrugs and says that they remind her of home.


End file.
